It is the second and last day of quarter final action in the Australian Open in Melbourne on Wednesday as the bottom half of both draws decide their semi-finalists on another busy day on the Rod Laver Arena.
Tuesday saw cruises for all of the favourites with Agnieszka Radwanska, Serena Williams, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic all coming through in straight sets and on Wednesday we’ll see if the likes of Andy Murray and Victoria Azarenka can do likewise.
Azarenka gets the action underway when she takes on Angelique Kerber for a place in the last four. The two time champion has continued her love affair with Melbourne so far in this tournament and has come through without dropping a set so far. In fact there has only been one set where she has lost more than a couple of games.
After a marathon battle in the first round Kerber has been clinical for the rest of the tournament and if she can play to that level she might make this a cracking contest. She will need to be at her best though you feel.
These two have met six times and Azarenka has won all six including in the final in Brisbane in the lead up to this tournament so Azarenka will be full of confidence and belief here. I nearly took under 20.5 games in this match but I respect Kerber’s last performance or two enough to leave that alone. I’m on the Belarussian outright so I’ll take a watching brief here.
The strong British interest on Wednesday begins with the second match when Jo Konta looks to continue her fine run. She takes on Shuai Zhang for a place in the semi-final.
Both ladies will be playing in their first Grand Slam quarter final here so there are sure to be a few nerves kicking around. Both came through three set matches in the last round but once again Konta impressed massively under pressure and if she has no lingering effects of that marathon match with Makarova then I fancy her to win this.
Konta is ranked the higher of the two and going into this tournament had much the better Slam record. I wouldn’t put anyone off taking her here but I’m on her at 10/1 for the quarter which is effectively winning this match so I don’t need to get involved again.
Andy Murray is on court after Konta. He faces a regular foe in David Ferrer, a foe he has the hex over in recent times and from what we’ve seen in this tournament that is likely to continue.
Murray has to give up 5.5 games here which is probably the right line but he has had a habit of winning comfortably this week without covering handicaps in recent matches so that puts me off. I’m not sure I can back Ferrer though with their record the way it is currently so I’ll leave this one alone.
I was surprised that Milos Raonic and Gael Monfils got the night session but I’m glad they did because this one should be a really entertaining match.
Raonic’s power and Monfils’ athleticism should make for a really watchable game. Monfils has a 2-0 head to head record against the Canadian but in fairness to Raonic they were before he was this established.
I think this will be good while it lasts but I’m not sure it will last as long as we would like. I think the games line is quite high here at 42.5. Both men are aggressive and will either hit plenty of winners or lots of unforced errors so I’m not sure we’ll see too many tight sets here.
For a supposed tie-break machine Raonic has only had two in this tournament, both against Robredo and he butchered a number of break points in both sets so all of a sudden that tag might not be as correct as it used to be. Carlos Moya has certainly had an impact on his return and all-round game.
Monfils has only had one tie break in the tournament so far and a few very one-sided sets so we might need five sets to get this game line covered. With that in mind I’ll take the unders here.
Back G.Monfils vs M.Raonic – Under 42.5 games for a 4/10 stake at 1.85 with Betfair
